This was the day of Eridan Ampora's concert at the Core.
The week leading up to it was simultaneously the best and worst experience of his life.
He couldn't remember a time he had been happier than when he was with Sollux those first few days after the excursion to Denny's. He spent all his time at his neighbors' house, and became just as much a fixture there as the pizza crust still perched on one of the blades of the living room fan (which he learned quite quickly was not to be disturbed for fear of upsetting the "wicked motherfuckin' energies"). He would wake up in Sollux's arms, shuffle groggily to the bathroom, grunt when Karkat shouted at him to get his hair shit off the sink, shower and get himself otherwise presentable, and then grab a pancake off the inexhaustible stack beside the stove. He would then converse with the household's illustrious chef for a time before Sollux and Tavros eventually made their way out into the kitchen as well.
Getting to that level of blissful monotony, however, had been a trying experience.
Eridan quickly learned that Sollux was physically unable to operate on several standard levels of human functionality. One of which included his sleeping habits. He would wake up at obscenely early hours, but that did not make him a morning person in any sense of the word. Sollux Captor refused to do anything before noon that did not involve staring at his computer screen and moving his fingers just enough to click and scroll and scroll and click and sometimes, if he was feeling particularly adventurous, tap the enter key. For the first few days, Eridan had dealt with the situation by twisting himself into an inextricable knot of limbs and sheets on the bed, staring restlessly up at the ceiling after none of his at least twenty attempts at conversation yielded any results. When he tried dealing with the situation by crawling from the bed and kissing Sollux's neck from behind, it only earned him a grumble and swat.
So, completely livid, Eridan had marched to the bathroom to get showered and dressed, after which he had planned on bursting back into the bedroom and announcing with an appropriate flourish that he was going to go back home. But when he found Sollux reclined on the bed with his laptop open, patting the pillow next to him, Eridan had no will or desire to do anything but comply. They spent the next few hours until lunch scrolling Reddit together and arguing about Skrillex's legitimacy as a musician.
After that, they developed a silent understanding of how mornings worked. Sollux would wake up first, and was not to be touched until Eridan had roused and gotten himself showered and ready.
The issue of Sollux's hygiene did not undergo such a smooth transition.
It didn't take Eridan long to figure out that if Sollux was not physically forced into the shower, he had little hope of ever getting himself clean on any given day. And so it became a daily test of Eridan's physical and mental endurance as he would pull Sollux away from the computer and shove him down the hall. In one week he'd already employed several methods of making sure that showers were a thing that happened once Sollux was inside the bathroom. One day he had shoved a chair under the doorknob, only to forget that the door opened inwards. He'd toppled over the chair as it went crashing onto the bathroom tile, Sollux vaulting over him like some Olympic runner and sprinting back to his room. The next time, Eridan had entered the bathroom with Sollux, stripping him of all his clothes. The gangly man tried to distract him with a sudden onslaught of affection, kissing him and tugging at his pants as he backed toward the door, but Eridan was far too intelligent for such an obvious tactic. Far too intelligent, but not so unwilling. They ended up in the shower together that time, Eridan mostly clothed and Sollux doing more kissing and fondling than actual cleaning.
After that, Sollux was more compliant with regard to daily showers, though he still needed a reminder and a sharp tug at the back of his chair. This came at both Eridan's relief and chagrin. Not having to wrestle with Sollux to avoid inhaling his pungent body juices was always a positive, but it left him with one less opportunity to strip Sollux of his clothing.
Not that he didn't have enough opportunities already.
That night after they'd returned from Denny's and Sollux had ascertained that Karkat had not made another foray into the bathtub, they'd retreated to the bedroom. And despite the stifling heat of the summer night and their clothing, they had wasted no time crawling back onto the bed. They were nearly of a height, but Sollux's advantage of a few inches made him the perfect size to curl around Eridan's body. His knees lined up perfectly with Eridan's, their legs fitting together like fragments of a broken pot. His wiry arms were surprisingly strong around Eridan's chest as he clung to him, this time with more purpose than he had during his groggy cuddles from earlier.
It made Eridan grip at those bony wrists and press himself back against Sollux's chest, relishing in the almost painfully uncomfortable heat. And the arms responded by wrapping around him tighter, and then a pair of warm lips were pressed flush against the back of his neck. And tingles showered down his spine and into his limbs and pooled in his fingers and toes and radiated from every pore. And Eridan gripped Sollux now with a kind of desperation. One where the consequences of letting go meant falling back into a foggy abyss from which there was no climbing out. He turned his head, breaking those lips away from his neck, twisting so he could see the owner of the body he was clinging to. Who was clinging to him. To confirm that it wasn't just some delusion born from the summer heat.
He met those mismatched eyes for only a moment before Sollux was on him. Their lips joined, and Eridan clung to him, shifting himself around, pressing into him, moving with a violent fervor. Sollux's thigh pressed between Eridan's legs, and all the uncomfortable heat gathered there flared into a full, red flame. His fingers clawed at Sollux's back with a desperate need as that thigh continued to press into him, to rub and roll against his crotch, fanning the fire deep in his stomach. He bent his knees, squeezing them against Sollux's sides, his hands dipping and rising and tangling in the folds of Sollux's shirt, hooking and snagging on the belt loops of his jeans. And Sollux responded in kind, pressing his tongue further into Eridan's mouth, filling him up, rolling their hips together until Eridan was no longer sure where his body ended and Sollux's began.
Then his shirt was gone, his glasses knocked askew, and he was breathing and gasping and biting into the silence of the room as Sollux bent over him and traced a line of kisses down his chest. His stomach. Eridan hadn't known what to do with his hands besides tangle them in Sollux's hair and feel the outline of each strand between his fingers. And he was acutely aware of the fire in his groin. How heart-poundingly free he'd felt once his tight pants had been shucked away. And he had tried to think. Tried to make his hands work to unbutton Sollux's jeans and plunge his hand beneath the waistband of his boxers. But then there was a hand against him. Fingers slipping under his briefs and pulling him out. And not just any fingers, but his fingers. And then he could feel warm breath ghosting over his length, and then a pair of lips brushing over the head and he was gone. Lost in a spiral of pulsating white light and wrenching tremors and he gasped and groaned and cursed as Sollux jerked away in surprise.
And then he came down. Like a fluttering ash descending from an explosion, the heat frothing inside him cooled. And then returned with a mounting horror. He lifted his head and looked to Sollux, who was sitting up, his shirt wrinkled and his pants undone, wiping sticky white fluid from his face.
"Jesus christ," he said.
Eridan put an arm over his burning face, wanting to roll off the bed and underneath it, where he could chew through the floorboards and claw himself a tunnel exactly twenty miles underground where he would proceed to die in shame. But since his limbs felt like liquefied jelly, all he could do was reply with a tremulous, "I'm so fuckin' sorry."
Sollux snagged a few tissues from the box on his desk. As he moved, Eridan could see that he was still painfully hard, and it only served to make everything that much worse. Once Sollux returned to the bed, he handed a tissue to Eridan, who took it and crumpled it in his fist until his knuckles were white.
"So have you never…" Sollux began with all the grace of a dancing horse as he scrubbed at his chin with his own tissue.
"I would think that's painfully fuckin' obvious at this point," Eridan snapped, trying to inject his voice with as much venom as possible to burn away the tremors of shame.
"Jesus christ," Sollux whispered, gazing down at Eridan once more.
"Yeah, I get it, you're fuckin' impressed with my ability to dissolve into a pathetic steamin' pile a virginity who could break records with his finishin' times. I'd put fuckin' track athletes to shame." His voice wobbled dangerously as he spoke, and he couldn't remove the arm from his face. If he had to look at Sollux and his obvious state of dissatisfaction one more time, he knew it would mean a humiliation so potent that death would be instantaneous.
"Hey." Sollux's voice was soft. Reassuring. And Eridan felt his arm being forced down until he was looking up at Sollux through a film of hot liquid embarrassment. He blinked stiffly, and a smile beneath a pair of mismatched eyes swam into view above him before he was locked in another kiss. It was warm and wet and full, and when Sollux's lips left his, they took some of the hot shame with them.
"I really don't give a shit, okay? I mean, yeah, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't impressive—"
"Oh my fuckin' god, Sol."
Sollux bent down and silenced him with another kiss, and Eridan could feel the smile on his lips as he did. It remained as he pulled away, just a tiny little grin that somehow made the situation seem less monumentally catastrophic than it was.
"It just means we'll have to work at it. What is it all the assholes like to say once you inevitably fuck something up the first time? Practice makes perfect, or some shit?"
He snickered and kissed Eridan again before throwing another tissue at him. And Eridan finally cracked a smile and sat up enough to wipe himself off before Sollux flopped against the pillows next to him, tugging his laptop between them and booting up Minecraft. He then proceeded to punish Eridan for giving him one of the nastiest cases of blue balls ever by ordering the man to trek across the street to procure his laptop so they could work on Alternia together. Eridan bemoaned the injustice of it all for as long as he was physically able until Sollux finally kicked him off the bed. They spent the rest of the morning building an underground cave system where the young trolls would spawn and undergo a barrage of the nastiest booby traps the two of them could think up, Sollux berating Eridan for the overpriced atrocity that was his MacBook all the while.
After that mishap, they practiced at every time and place available. The bedroom, the shower, and one instance in the garage that they denied up and down after Karkat had pulled in from work one day to find a pair of socks crumpled by the back door. They got to the point where Eridan could last for several minutes against Sollux's pliant tongue, and was even able to reciprocate with enough skill to make the other man buck and groan and swear into the back of his hand.
But as the week wore on, so marched the onslaught of anxiety until not even the tantalizing kisses Sollux would place at the nape of Eridan's neck were enough of a deterrent. By Friday, he was a milky white mess, sitting in his room and clutching his guitar, dreading the sunset and the hour of reckoning that came along with it.
He could blame numerous factors for his sudden nose-dive in confidence, but of course the biggest one was the coffee house hag.
She had phoned him on Wednesday after a particularly heated exchange of blowjobs during which Sollux's finger had found its way beneath Eridan and up inside him, and the explosion of heat and light and spasms and cursing that followed was so intense that they both nearly missed the acoustic ring tone of Eridan's phone.
Sollux had what he called a "hate sense" for the music, however, and so he plucked up Eridan's pants from the floor beside the bed and fished the device out of the pocket. He frowned at the number for a moment before tossing it to Eridan.
"You should probably take this."
"I should probably fuckin' die, more like," Eridan replied, jerking up as the phone hit his bare stomach. He then flopped back against the pillows as his cell continued to ring. He put a hand on his forehead. "I'm never gonna be able to move again. That's fuckin' it for me. Game over, I cashed in all my fuckin' lives on that one."
"Jesus, if you're using nerdy references on my behalf, please don't. You're giving my people a bad name." He leaned over Eridan and placed the phone on his heaving chest. "Come on. Answer."
"Fine, christ." Eridan snatched the phone up and accepted the call before pressing it to his ear. "Eridan speakin'. Who do I have the pleasure a conversin' with?"
"Wow, you're even lamer on the phone than you are in real life. I'm impressed."
He recognized the voice instantly. "Vris. What the fuck are you doin' contactin' me at my personal number?"
"Because that's the number you gave to me. Don't tell me you have a separate business line, Eridan," her voice was edged with mocking laughter, and Eridan turned a healthy shade of pink that had nothing to do with his recent orgasm.
"What do you want, and make it quick because I got other important shit to be gettin' on with all right?" he snapped.
"Yeah, yeah, says the guy with no job who's making his big musical debut at a local coffee shop," Vriska replied. "Sorry that I forgot for a second how big of a deal you are. But you should be thanking me, really. I went ahead and expanded your audience out of the goodness of my own heart. So now you have twice as many people to impress with your awesome music."
Eridan felt his stomach shrink. "Wait, what are you goin' on about?"
"Wow, sorry, I didn't realize I had to spell it out for you. I'm saying that I got a bunch of other people to come to your stupid thing. You have to make good on your promise to bring Gamzee's clown posse first, though. Otherwise they won't bother showing up."
"Wait, who else did you invite?" Eridan demanded, turning away from Sollux and pressing the phone even harder to his ear.
Vriska laughed. "Like you'd even know them, new guy. But I'll give you a clue and say that they're a pretty big deal as far as the local music scene goes. At least one of them is. And I have yet to hear a single thank you come out of your mouth for giving you all these sweet hookups. After all the trouble I went through too."
Her voice was dripping with laughter, and it turned Eridan an even angrier shade of pink. "I'm not botherin' to thank you because you're a fuckin' witch and I don't like the sounds a this one bit. I know you only agreed to this because a some bullshit between you and Tav, okay, so don't act like you're doin' me any fuckin' favors here."
"Hey." Her tone darkened suddenly. "I am doing you a favor, all right? And I didn't even have to go the extra mile to get people who actually matter to come to your crappy concert. But I did. So you can put a fucking boot in it about Tavros, okay? Like I even give a shit about that whiny pansy baby. Whoever told you otherwise is a lying idiot."
"Oh, so I suppose if I just neglected to bring him along, you'd be all sorts a fine with that," Eridan snarled.
"I said bring everyone in Gamzee's house, and he's a part of that package now, isn't he? This has nothing to do with him or me, those were just the terms of our agreement. Or are you backing out on that Eridan Ampora? Hmmmmmmmm?" Her voice was flippant, but there was an underlying anger that Eridan was quick to sniff out.
"I'm not backin' outta anything. I'm just sayin' to keep your fuckin' bullshit outta my business all right? And quit actin' like you're doin' this all for my benefit because I know you're not and I'm pretty sure this is just all some elaborate ruse to make me look like a fuckin' idiot."
"God, your level of self-importance is really ridiculous. I'd be impressed if it weren't so annoying. Just make sure everyone comes, and I'll have a great big audience waiting to listen to you. And just remember that I can cross your name out of this book whenever I feel like it. So don't try any funny shit."
She hung up and Eridan proceeded to toss his phone back into the rumpled pile of clothes on the floor. As he flopped back against the pillows, he found Sollux staring hard at him through his one good eye.
"What was that about?" he asked.
Eridan sighed, scooting himself closer to Sollux's warm body and closing his eyes. "Just Vris attemptin' to ruin my life as usual."
Sollux frowned. "Eridan, I was sitting right here for that entire conversation. And you kind of sounded like an insufferable asshole for at least one hundred percent of it."
Eridan's eyes snapped open and he scowled. "She's tryin' to turn my concert into a complete disaster because a some vindictive rage centered around her romantic history with Tav. I'm not an idiot, I know what's goin' on here, I've seen this kinda shit before. It's just really pathetic that she feels the need to draw me into her web a revenge like she's doin'. It's probably because she's fuckin' jealous that I've only been here for about two months and already I've made more social and romantic headway than she ever will."
Sollux's gaze darkened as his eyebrows lowered. "First of all, I am not some fucking conquest that you get to count towards your own personal cache of asshole points."
Eridan pushed himself up on his elbows, his scowl vanishing from his face. "Wait, that's not what I—"
"And second of all, VK is an old friend of mine. And I know she can be hard to deal with sometimes, but she's not trying to fuck up your shitty concert, okay?"
Eridan gave him a wounded look. "My concert's not shitty, all right, and there's no way you can know that she isn't doin' something petty and backhanded here because for starters you have no idea what she even called me about."
Sollux rolled his eyes. "Okay Eridan," he replied, as if rehearsing a set of lines. "What did she call you about?"
"She was goin' on about havin' hooked me a whole crowd a new people to come watch me play at the Core."
"Wow," Sollux remarked flatly. "Sounds awful."
"You don't get it, Sol, this is like her way a puttin' a ton a fuckin' pressure on me, like it's blackmail in a sense because now if things with Tav don't go the way she wants them, she can fuckin' turn all her friends against me and send my concert crashin' into the dirt with a flick of her vile wrist." Eridan was growing taut with fury as he continued to glower at Sollux.
"Or maybe she's just trying to make this concert a success so that she doesn't lose her fucking job for booking you," Sollux snapped.
"You don't get it, Sol, she's got ulterior motives and she's draggin' me into the thick a them to serve as the whippin' boy once things don't go how she wants."
"She doesn't give two shits about you, Eridan," Sollux snarled. "Not everything in the fucking world is about you, okay?"
Eridan rolled off the bed then, trying to control the furious tremors in his limbs as he snatched his clothes from the ground and began yanking them back on. Sollux collapsed back into the pillows, throwing an arm over his face and sighing loudly. As Eridan threw his scarf over his neck and grabbed his laptop, Sollux finally looked up.
"Where are you going?" he asked, more out of an obligation to posit the question than genuine curiosity.
"Home," Eridan snapped, yanking his phone charger from the wall. "I've wasted all a this time over here with you and haven't done a fuckin' lick a practicin' in almost a week. And I'm gonna need every ounce a skill I can scrape together to help make this fuckin' production a success because god knows I'm not gettin' support from anywhere else."
Sollux heaved himself upright, reaching down to grab his boxers and tug them on. "Come on, ED, don't be like this."
"Be like what, Sol?" Eridan swung around, clutching his laptop to his chest, the cord swinging at his knees. "Worried about the veritable fuckin' pile a people I'm gonna make a fool a myself in front of after Vris has her way with me? Or be fuckin' furious that the one person I thought would vouch for me is sidin' with the enemy?"
"There is no enemy, you stupid fucking tool," Sollux snapped, pulling on his pants. "She's just a fucking person. And a person you happen to know exactly jack shit about."
"Well I guess I'm findin' out that that statement pertains to a lot a fuckin' people in my life, doesn't it?" Eridan rebuked, tearing open Sollux's door before slamming it shut and stomping down the hallway. He nearly bowled over Karkat on his way past the kitchen, but didn't stop to heed the angry curses that came pelting after him. He just stormed to the door, stuffed on his flip-flops, and marched out of the house.
Once he was back in his own room, he tossed his laptop onto the bed and kicked the door closed. He managed to do at least a full minute of furious pacing before he dragged his guitar out from under the bed and slammed it down on the mattress. He flipped the latches and threw the case open before staring at the instrument inside.
Then he resumed his furious pacing.
At last he burst out of his room and into the kitchen, digging a hot pocket out of the freezer before throwing it in the microwave. As he waited for it to heat up, he pulled his phone from his pocket and jabbed at Feferi's name in his contact list. As he held the phone to his ear, he listened to the dial tone until there was a click.
"Hi! This is Feferi!"
"Fef I—"
"I can't come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I'll get back to you when I can."
Eridan pulled the phone away and glared at it for a moment before putting it back to his ear. "Whatever you're doin', Fef, you should stop doin' it right fuckin' now and answer your phone because I am havin' an emotional crisis that needs seein' to in a very immediate manner."
He ended the call then, throwing the phone on the counter, and then having to interrupt the subsequent pouting with a violent lunge as the device nearly went spinning off the edge and onto the tile below. As he caught it and set it back down more carefully, he heard a knock at the door. He stalked toward it before pulling it open a crack and peering outside. Sollux was standing on the porch in his stained jeans and old green t-shirt with its faded black skull. His arms were wrapped around his laptop, the cord clenched between his teeth.
"What do you want?" Eridan asked, his eyes narrowed.
Sollux sighed, his voice garbled as he spoke around the cord in his mouth. "Can you jusht let me in?"
Eridan pursed his lips but retreated a few steps, just enough to allow Sollux to enter. Once inside, Sollux pushed his foot back against the door to shut it before kicking off his shoes.
"Can I put thish in your room?" he asked, lifting the computer in his arms for emphasis.
Eridan shrugged. "Just don't mess anything up."
Sollux rolled his eyes before shuffling off down the hall. In the mean time, Eridan snatched his Hot Pocket from the microwave and slapped it on a plate before making his way to the room as well.
He found Sollux carefully tucking his computer on the dresser beneath the TV. He turned to look at Eridan as the man climbed onto the bed, kicking his guitar case closed before attacking his Hot Pocket. But it was far too hasty an action to handle the molten insides of the Pocket, and he ended up spitting it gracelessly back onto the plate before slamming the whole thing on his bedside table. Sollux snickered softly as he crawled up onto the bed as well.
"And what's so fuckin' funny?" Eridan snapped as he dabbed the tip of his tongue against the back of his hand.
"You're just an idiot," Sollux replied, leaning back against the pillows. He then exhaled, the smirk melting from his lips. "Look, I didn't mean to make it sound like I was siding with VK, even though the fact that you're even thinking in terms of sides is fucking moronic. I'm just saying she's been through a lot of shit and that you should cut her some slack, okay?"
Eridan glared at him. "See, people like you and Kan keep sayin' shit like that, but no one ever fuckin' tells me anything, so what am I even supposed to make a the whole situation?"
"I'll tell you," Sollux replied. "You leave it the fuck alone. Not that hard. I don't know why you feel like you have to stick your nose in other people's business constantly."
Eridan stared at his knees. "Yeah, well, you can say that, but stickin' my noses in places it shouldn't be is what got me to you."
He felt Sollux's hand slide around his shoulders before Eridan was drawn into a tight hug. He put his face in the faded green shirt then, breathing in the wonderful sent of musty old laundry and bar soap. Sollux's voice was quiet as he replied.
"Yeah, I know. I guess…I just feel like it's not my place to be telling you every detail of her life. Just…trust me, okay ED? She's not out to get you or anything. She always has hotter irons in the fire than that."
Eridan fisted his hand in Sollux's shirt, nuzzling into his chest. "Yeah, I know. I'm just really fuckin' nervous about this is all, and she's not helpin' by callin' up and tellin' me just how much bigger of a fuckin' deal the whole thing is becomin'. I mean…the only person who really matters as far as attendance is concerned is you."
He felt Sollux's fingers brush through his hair. "Me?"
"Well yeah," Eridan replied, lifting his head. "You're the only reason I'm holdin' the fuckin' thing to begin with. I mean, initially it was supposed to be this elaborate fuckin' mode a courtship or whatever to explain my feelings to you, but now that we've sorta aired things out on our own, that purpose has been pretty effectively voided. But honestly, it's still a really important thing to me, because this is like my first real test as a musician, and not to mention that I still feel really strongly about the subject matter a the songs because it's not like any a my feelings toward you have changed. In fact they've become even more disgustingly ravenous in just the past week than they ever were before. So I guess it just all adds up into this feeling of wantin' to do a really good job of it."
"I…didn't know about any of that," Eridan felt Sollux's grip on his hair tighten slightly before a pair of thin lips descended on his head. "Now I feel like a complete asshole for being so apathetic about this whole concert thing."
Eridan laughed into Sollux's chest. "To be honest, your general lack a shits given has made it easier to restrain myself from freakin' out as much as I would otherwise be doin'. Not to mention that I know you don't like my music anyway, so I've chalked up your lack of interest to something that I just gotta deal with in people who have awful artistic taste."
Sollux gave him a shove, but Eridan just turned and kissed him before leaning over to his bedside table to pick up his Now-Lukewarm Pocket and begin chewing on it. Sollux rested his head on Eridan's shoulder, staring at the guitar still sitting on the bed.
"Can I hear you play?"
Eridan swallowed. "What, right now?"
"Sure. You have to practice anyway right? Besides, I want to hear just how good you got while leaving me hanging for about a week in front of my computer while consumed with Minecraft malnourishment."
Eridan set the rest of his Hot Pocket back on the plate. "To be honest, I got more accomplished in terms a watchin' Youtube videos than anything in the way a real practice. And I don't want to ruin the concert for you by playin' songs from that lineup."
Sollux frowned. "How many songs?"
Eridan looked pale. "Like, uh, three."
"At least it'll be over quick, then."
"Yeah."
They stared together at the instrument for a long time before Eridan finally lurched forward and opened the case, heaving the guitar onto his lap.
"I guess I could at least play you a couple chords and scales and shit just to sorta warm up and find my rhythm."
Sollux snorted and Eridan threw him a glare before running a thumb over the strings.
That was when the music started playing in Eridan's house. It didn't stop until Friday evening, five minutes before they had to leave.
"Come on, ED, you're going to be fine," Sollux sighed as he tugged the guitar from his boyfriend's trembling fingers.
"Except I'm not," he replied. He looked like bleached linen under his freshly combed hair. Every strand had been tucked even more meticulously into place than usual, and Eridan had donned the nicest outfit he could rustle up from inside his dresser to complement it. A blazer over an untucked pink collared shirt, a grey scarf looped loosely around his neck, and a pair of faded gray jeans clinging close to his legs as usual. He twisted one of his rings as he darted back into the bathroom yet again to make sure nothing had wrinkled or fallen out of place in the ten seconds since he'd last checked.
"I look like a fuckin' mess," He wailed into the sink as Sollux tugged at his shoulders.
"You look fantastic and you've practiced enough to give me ear cancer." Sollux barked. "You're going to be fine."
Of course he had never been allowed in the house while any real practicing was going on, so Eridan could take little comfort from his words. He simply slouched against Sollux as the man marched him from the bathroom, one hand on Eridan's shoulder and the other clutching his guitar case. Once outside, the gutter of an engine and wheezing honk of a horn alerted Eridan that the others were already there. Though the Core was within walking distance, Karkat had flatly refused to, in his words, "stand as the acting ringleader of the asshole circus." Whatever that meant.
"He looks like he's going to hurl," Karkat remarked as he got out of the driver's seat to open the back door so that Sollux could proceed to shove a lamenting Eridan and his guitar case inside. "If he pukes, you are fucking cleaning it. I am washing my hands of you assholes right now, and I hope that statement goes on the universe's invisible record or something because I cleaned this guy's stomach slime up once and it is never happening again."
Eridan slumped against the window after the car door was slammed shut, clutching his guitar case and feeling like he was about to cry vomit or puke tears or maybe both at once. He was vaguely aware of the fact that Tavros and Gamzee were occupying the back seat with him, and that the former had asked him a stammering question. But all of it was drowned out in the distant roar of the engine and the frantic slamming of his heart against his sternum. He put a hand to his chest, his throat clogged with bile and panic, and suddenly images of collapsing on stage began to flicker through his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his head to his guitar case.
He could do this. This was his dream. And Sollux was with him. He'd practiced.
But not enough.
Never enough.
He ground his teeth, hissing silent orders at his heart to slow down so that he could, for just a fraction of a moment, catch up and pull his head down from the dizzying heights of panic which it had reached.
But his heart had never been very good at listening.
By the time they arrived at the coffee shop, Eridan felt as if he'd just gotten finished completing a triathlon. His legs were so weak and wobbly that Sollux had to lift him from his seat and help him stand, Gamzee clutching the guitar beside them and smiling vaguely up at the summer stars.
"God, you look like shit," Sollux admitted at last as he walked Eridan up to the door of the café. "Are you sure you're going to be okay doing this?"
"Well I'm gonna have to be," Eridan replied, though his voice sounded like air blowing through cracked parchment. "I got no choice left now but to fuckin' go through with it." He coughed into the sleeve of his blazer, and Sollux gave his shoulders a squeeze.
"I can get you a drink or something," he offered.
Eridan shook his head. "No, I'll fuckin' chuck back anything I try to put in me at this point. But thanks anyway."
The bells on the door jangled as they entered. Eridan blinked through the dim lighting of the shop, noticing that one corner in particular had been lit to blinding brightness, a stool sitting by itself in the center of it and surrounded by a sea of other tables, all mostly filled.
He wanted to drop to his knees and be sick on the spot. But Sollux held him close.
"Heeeeeeeey, Eridan." He looked up from his dyspeptic delirium to see Vriska standing before him and giving a wave. Her ratted black hair was pulled back and she had on her blue lipstick and eye make up as usual, but she was dressed differently. Instead of khakis and a polo, she had on a black graphic tee and a pair of jeans with red sneakers. Her smile was as eerily bright and biting as ever.
"You were almost late to your own gig. Pretty much everyone is already here." She gestured towards the filled tables.
"Oh god…"
Karkat's voice was so tiny and wavering that for a second Eridan thought that it must have been Tavros that had spoken. But as he looked over his shoulder, he could see Karkat eyeing one table as if it were occupied by fleshy nightmares. As Eridan turned to get a look at it himself, however, all he saw was three people. A red haired girl with a huge smile and a pair of pointed sunglasses, and an expressionless blond youth with aviators that covered most of his face. The last person Eridan recognized from Toppers as none other than John Egbert. The boy noticed the group of them standing at the door, and gave them all a buck-toothed grin as he waved.
"This is not a coffee shop," Karkat whispered. "I have stepped through a portal and into the deepest pits of torment. This transcends fucking reality."
Vriska's smile never left her painted lips. "Oh yeah, that's right. Didn't some kind of embarrassing thing at a movie theatre happen between the two of you? Wow, I completely forgot about that until now. Tough break, Karkat."
"Why am I not surprised you're privy to this information?" Karkat snarled. "You probably got it from your sister in soul-shredding torment, didn't you?"
Vriska's smile vanished and she gave a shrug. "She's been really boring lately, so we haven't really talked much. I have no idea what's got her going on this sudden lame stint. Don't really care either."
"Is there anyone you do talk to anymore?" Eridan snarled over the cramps in his gut. "Seems like the only person who ever wants anything to do with you is Kan, seein' as you had to fuckin' con me into bringin' Tav here to talk to you."
Sollux gave him a warning look as Vriska turned towards him. When their eyes met, Eridan was surprised by how blue they were. Like someone had run electricity through her irises. And suddenly she looked dangerous, and he wished he could snatch his words from the air and stuff them back in his mouth.
"How about you just do what you signed up for and keep the rest of your stupid commentary to yourself?" she said, her mouth stretched wide in an unnatural smile.
"Wait, is, something going on?" Tavros asked, his voice barely audible. He looked nearly as white as Eridan in the dimness, but his eyes were locked on Vriska. "Did you really, do something, dishonest, in setting up Eridan's concert, so that you could, maybe, talk to me?"
Vriska rolled her eyes. "The only rules I bent were the ones barring me from booking this joker in the first place. I was just doing a favor, like I always do. Helping out weak, untalented people get a bit further in life so they're not such god-awful embarrassments to the rest of the world. But you'd know all about that, wouldn't you Tavros?"
Tavros looked at the floor. "I…I'm sorry."
"God, are you going to cry? Please don't tell me you're going to cry, I might actually vomit," Vriska snapped. But despite her words, she couldn't keep her own voice from cracking on the last syllable, and she clamped her blue lips shut.
"Maybe we should all of us just kick back and listen to some wicked motherfuckin' jams," Gamzee broke in, effectively sitting on the brick wall of tension between them, giving a lazy grin all the while.
"Like you could wrap your stupid pot-baked brain around any of this," Vriska snapped, rounding on him. "Keep your clown nose out of places it doesn't belong."
Gamzee's smile diminished. "I don't got to be knowing more than what I have it in me to know. I just up and let the understanding all fall where it will. The universe has a sort of way of making things all up and work out like they will. That's where miracles come from, you know."
"No, I don't know, because I have to work to make my own luck. It doesn't just fall onto my lap like it does with yours. By the way, how are mommy and daddy doing paying for all the extra roommates you've had to put up in order to keep you away from them? Good?"
Gamzee's smile all but vanished. "I just don't like to be all bearing witness to anyone having a sort of ill-mannered disagreement. Gets me to be feeling sort of heavy in my chest like I can't lift up my feet."
"See, I knew this was a terrible fuckin' idea," Eridan's voice boiled over the rest of them, the frantic pounding of his heart and twisting of his guts spurring him on as he lanced a glare at Vriska. "You can't keep your fuckin' trap shut long enough for me to even get my guitar out. You guys are gonna be fightin' durin' my fuckin' performance and makin' a huge embarrassment a me, I just knew this was how things were goin' to play out."
"I'm not the one who was accusing people of backhanded cons from the get-go," Vriska snapped. "I never wanted to talk about any of this, you ego-jacked idiot. You're right about someone having a big mouth here, but it sure isn't me."
She stormed off behind the counter, and a few people drifted over to place their orders. Fuming, Eridan slumped back against Sollux.
"That was really stupid," Sollux said, his voice low.
"Well, it needed to be fuckin' said. And it got her off our cases, didn't it?" Eridan rebuked.
"Yeah, but you're already on edge. Just let Vriska do her thing, and you do yours, okay?
Sollux's voice was firm and soft, but instead of soothing Eridan, it made something inside him snag and rip until white hot anger boiled out. He hated the patronizing tone woven into the words. He pushed himself away from Sollux and turned back to him, livid.
"I'll leave her alone as long as she continues keepin' to herself," Eridan snapped. "But I'm not makin' any promises if I see her tryin' to step on any fuckin' toes while I'm performin', all right? I am not in the correct fuckin' state a mind to be dealin' with this shit right now."
"I'll say," Sollux muttered.
Eridan breathed derisively through his nostrils before reaching down to yank his guitar from Gamzee's hand.
But the man wouldn't let go.
Eridan bared his teeth. "Come on, Gam, stop fuckin' around. I need this."
"I just don't want to be relinquishing any motherfuckin' items to you until I get a good word that you're going to get your settle down on."
Eridan sneered and looked up to give a scathing reply, but when he met Gamzee's gaze, the words died on his lips. He couldn't be sure if it was a trick of the dim light or his own panicked imagination, but the eyes beneath that ragged mop of hair looked completely black.
"I just don't want to be seeing any more motherfuckin' fighting is all," he said. His voice was soft. "Gets me all in a bad place where I don't much like spending time at, you know?"
Eridan gave his guitar another yank, which he couldn't be sure was purposeful or simply the result of an anxious spasm. Gamzee released the instrument then, and Eridan gripped it with both hands to prevent it from crashing to the floor. When he looked back up, Gamzee was peering at him with a forlorn expression, but his eyes were their normal shade of green.
Eridan cast his gaze back to the floor. "Yeah, well, I don't want to see it either," he muttered before heaving his guitar up and starting to pick his way toward the lit corner of the room. Before he could get very far, however, a hand pulled at his shoulder. He turned, and saw Sollux looking back at him.
"You're going to do great, okay?"
Eridan's mouth twisted. "I wish I could believe that."
Sollux leaned forward and kissed him. Not a simple peck on the lips, but a full kiss, the kind that made Eridan's head feel warm and fuzzy and light. When their lips parted, Sollux ran a thumb over Eridan's cheek. "Then I'll believe it for you from the sidelines until I've got you convinced." He gave him a tiny smirk. "Just…don't think too much, okay?"
"Whatever that means," Eridan retorted, but a smile fluttered over his lips. "Thanks, Sol."
The rest he had to do on his own. Sollux retreated to a side wall as Eridan lugged his guitar forward and ducked into the light. It was warm there, and the feeling of a room full of eyes all burning into him at once was instantaneous. He swallowed, trying not to look outside his globe of light as he set his case on the ground, flicking up the latches and lifting it open. He hefted the sleek wooden instrument from the purple velvet within, glad for the chill of the wood against his sweaty palms.
He forced himself to his feet then, clambering onto the stool and adjusting the guitar in his lap. As he sat there, flipping the pick between his fingers and plucking it against a few strings to tune them, he began regretting not taking Sollux up on his offer for a drink. His tongue felt like sandpaper against the back of his throat. He scraped it against his teeth and swallowed hard in an effort to moisten his mouth, but to no avail. He needed water. But to get up now when he was already in position would be tacky and unprofessional. It was only three songs anyway. He coughed into his sleeve before adjusting his guitar again and finally raising his head to face the audience.
The Core was small, and the people seated at the tables and looking up at him probably only numbered in the thirties. But to Eridan it may as well have been a boundless ocean of squinting eyes and gaping mouths, all obscured by the glare of the hot light beating down above him. They were like nightmares. Waiting outside the edges of daylight, poised to strike.
He gripped his guitar. Stupid. The only things that lay outside his pocket of light were people. People who had come to hear music. And he was going to give it to them.
He exhaled.
"Good evenin' everyone. My name is—"
"The mic!" somebody called out from the back of the room. Eridan's voice stumbled to a halt and he blinked. Someone in the front row motioned to his left, and Eridan turned to see a microphone stand sitting beside him.
"Oh right. One second here…"
He pulled the device closer, bending it down so fast he nearly hit himself in the face. He could hear a snort of laughter from somewhere, and the sweat pooling under his arms began to drip down his sides. He adjusted the microphone until it was comfortably close to his mouth before he brought his hands back to his guitar.
"Okay as I was sayin'—" He had to pause and wince at just how loud his voice was before continuing. "As I was sayin', my name is Eridan Ampora, and this is goin' to be my musical debut a sorts. So I'm really glad you all could make it here, even though it's gonna be a pretty short performance."
The silence that followed his echoing voice made him feel like he was going to drown. He took a breath before strumming his guitar, beginning the simple chord progression for his first song. He hadn't wanted to do anything too complex for any of his pieces, but despite the relative simplicity of each composition, his fingers felt stiff, and he felt the cogs of his brain locking up as they tried to frantically pull lyrics and fingerings from the crevices of his mind. He swallowed hard. God, he needed water.
"Okay, this first one is just a simple sorta summer piece that's got deeper connotations about life and stuff if you care to think about it for a while."
He closed his eyes then, trying to remember Sollux's words. Don't think too much. He let his fingers ease over the simple introduction before getting into the heart of the song, a progression of basic chords that provided the backdrop for his lyrics. As he sang, his eyes closed. He felt the movements coming easier, the words melting on his tongue, and he could've sworn he for a moment that he was spinning silver thread from the air. As he took the song to the bridge, he opened his eyes, his heart dancing hectically in his chest.
The audience continued to gape back. At the table of three near the front, he could see the blond guy with the aviators sitting next to John. His hands were folded in front of his mouth. Beside him he could see the shoulders of the red-headed girl shaking in silent laughter. Eridan swallowed and closed his eyes again. They were just John's asshole friends, anyway. Karkat had been right about them, and if it had been up to Eridan, they would've never been let through the door.
His hand stumbled on a chord and he quickly pushed the thoughts from his mind. He couldn't think too much. He just had to breathe. Breathe and sing.
He ended the song with a light strum, his voice wavering off into silence. And the quiet pressed down on him like liquid lead. No explosion of applause followed. Just a few sniffs and the distant garbling of chatter. He heard a few popping claps, but nothing more. He opened his eyes as the bells on the coffee shop door jangled, just in time to see five people file outside.
He gripped his guitar in his shaking hands, trying to pick Sollux out in the darkness. He never found him. Instead he saw the aviators kid again. This time Eridan could clearly pick out the smirk behind his hands as the girl beside him leaned over and cackled in his ear. The shades obscured his eyes, but his face was fixed in Eridan's direction, and he never let his neck so much as twitch. They could have been talking about anything. But Eridan knew they weren't. Beside the blond asshole sat John. His previously cheerful expression had sagged, and he looked bored enough to melt out of his chair.
Frantically, Eridan's eyes darted toward the other faces, trying to snag any smiles or glittering gazes of rapture. He found none. Even when he located Karkat, he found the boy peering back at him through the spaces between his fingers, the rest of his face obscured by his hands.
He stared at his microphone instead, his mouth suddenly full of hot saliva. He swallowed it before clearing his throat.
"Okay this…this next one is pretty special to me and, it's…a song I wrote for the guy I love."
He originally had planned on saving this piece for last, but at the rate things were going now… Eridan took a deep breath and began strumming his guitar again, trying to let his fingers drift easily over the strings as he sang.
"I saw a boy with tired eyes
I said
Come with me and we can try
Try to search for a new life
Try to find a thing that's worth livin' for.
And he said
If it's all the same to you
I think I'm done livin' for two
I think there's not much left for me here.
But
If you want, then come with me
To a place where we can be
Whole again and with no one else
With no one else…"
He moved into a short instrumental, his fingers fluttering against a more complex succession of notes. He breathed, and, for a moment, let his eyes flick up, trying to find Sollux.
Instead he found people gazing into their coffees and glancing at their watches. Some were leaning over and passing whispers to their neighbors. And then there was the shades guy. Still staring at Eridan through his inscrutable lenses, that smirk still plainly visible behind his folded hands.
And Eridan felt the heat flare up in his guts. His fingers stumbled over the next few notes, but it went without his notice. Because this was all her fault. Her fault for inviting these people when he hadn't wanted them. Her fault for setting this up just to make him look like an idiot. And she was getting her wish. He felt as if he was being physically crushed as the bells on the door jangled and three more people left.
He struggled to pick out Sollux in the crowd as he continued, his voice wavering.
"If you want then come with me
To a place where we can be
Whole again and…"
He stumbled on his words, the guitar screeching in his hands. Like a hooked fish he gulped for air, slick with his own sweat. This wasn't how it was supposed to go at all. They were supposed to love it. And Sollux…where was he? He swept the crowd frantically, searching, until his eyes snagged on Tavros.
He wasn't watching. His head was turned and he was talking to the person beside him, who was wearing a black graphic tee and blue lipstick.
Vriska.
Eridan stood up so fast he knocked aside the microphone with his elbow, causing a hollow scream of sound to echo through the shop. And then there was silence.
"I told you to stay outta my business, Vris," he snapped.
A confused murmur passed through the spectators. They twisted in their seats as Vriska tore her eyes from Tavros and turned to Eridan, her expression taut.
"I'm not in your business," she replied. Her eyes flicked to the people staring at her before she locked her gaze back on Eridan. "Which actually consists of making music right now, in case you managed to forget."
"Well, that's what I would be doin' if you hadn't hand fuckin' selected this audience to oppose everything I fuckin' do. And after I've been nothing but cooperative with you and your unreasonable demands."
Several people snorted into their coffee mugs. Vriska, on the other hand, made no move to conceal her laughter. "Are you joking me? If people are leaving it's because you're music is garbage, not because I 'selected' them to hate you."
Eridan gripped the neck of his guitar until his knuckles turned white. "I'm just tryin' to do the best I can here, and I'm not gettin' any sorta concession from anybody."
"Well, then do better," Vriska snapped.
"Eridan, sit down."
Eridan barely heard the hiss off to his right. But he recognized the voice. Sollux.
He ignored him.
"You know, Vris, people keep tellin' me how fuckin' shit your life is, but I'm inclined to think that you're the one who's to blame for that." He clenched his fists and snarled. "Especially when you're takin' advantage of an innocent bystander like myself just for a piece of Tav's ass."
Vriska's eyes were so lit with rage in the darkness, her frame so tight with electric tremors of fury, that Eridan thought she was going to vault herself over a table and hit him.
But she didn't.
Because Gamzee hit him first.
Eridan heard the crash of a coffee mug and the scrape and clatter of tossed chairs before an explosion of pain in his face rocked him back against his stool. His heel caught on one of the rungs and he toppled over it, crashing to the ground and bringing the stool with him. He could taste warm iron in his mouth as a shadow loomed over him, and suddenly he was looking up into a pair of eyes. And this time there was no trick. No uncertainty. They were crystal clear and black. So black he almost missed the tiny green rings around them. So black he thought for a moment he was going to disappear inside of them.
"You shut your motherfucking mouth."
His breath smelled like brownies. Eridan felt a laugh bubble up inside him, and the panic made it burst, ripping from his throat in a clenching spasm of sound. He felt Gamzee's huge hand fist in the front of his shirt and the man was dragging him up, slamming him against the wall, and as Eridan felt his feet leave the ground he was, for the first time, painfully, frightfully aware of just how big the man was. Gamzee's teeth were bared, and there was no smile on his face. No serenity. No miracles. He slammed Eridan against the wall so hard his skull cracked against it and his glasses slipped down his nose.
"You SHUT your MOTHERFUCKING MOUTH."
The coffee house was in an uproar. Chairs scraped and slid and tables knocked against the ground. People were backing against the walls, others yelling, some fighting to break through to bear witness to the fight.
"Gamzee! Stop!"
Karkat's hands came out of nowhere, wrapping around his friend's waist, trying to pull him back. But he was so comically small next to Gamzee. Like some child trying to tear down a tree with his hands. And his usual surly expression had been wiped completely clean. And Eridan realized that Karkat was scared.
No. Terrified.
Eridan's heart hammered and stumbled and leapt and writhed in his chest. Some caged beast that was about to thrash itself to death against the bars of his ribcage. He swallowed, staring down at Gamzee as Gamzee stared up at him. And slowly, slowly, the rage vanished. He uncurled his fingers from the front of Eridan's shirt, and Eridan stumbled back to the ground, nearly staggering over until a pair of wiry arms caught him.
Sollux held Eridan close as Gamzee shook Karkat off and stalked toward the door, throwing chairs aside as he went. The crowd by the entrance parted before him as if it had been perforated, and with an oddly cheery jangle of bells, Gamzee was gone.
The coffee shop seemed to have been holding its breath. But the murmur of chatter rolled back in like the tide once Gamzee had left. People began rushing to right tables even as Vriska shouted at them to stay back, grabbing a broom to sweep up the broken mugs.
"Look at me."
Eridan felt a hand on his jaw, turning his head. And then he was staring up at Sollux as that one dark eye roved over his face.
"You're a fucking mess."
All Eridan could taste was blood. On his lips, sliding down his throat, blossoming fresh and warm in his mouth. He put his head on Sollux's shoulder and trembled.
"I wanna go home," he whispered.
Sollux put a hand to his head, hugging him close. Sheltering him. Hiding him as they slipped wordlessly from the coffee house and into the night.